Child abuse, catholic church, hypocrisy and criminality.

Below is the recent report on child abuse by the catholic church in the Netherlands. Up to 20,000 young people are thought to have been abused in the period studied. This is a staggering figure. It adds weight to the position of this blog that the criminality of capitalism and its institutions such as the catholic church is much worse than is imagined. The leadership of the catholic church in the Netherlands as in all other countries and as in the Vatican covered up these crimes. The leadership of this organization should all be put on trial. The bankers of Wall Street walk free, the bishops and cardinals and popes walk free. This is not right.

The Netherlands report touches briefly on celibacy and concludes that maybe there would have been less abuse if this had been voluntary for the church's full time organizers. No doubt celibacy and power inevitably increase the likelihood of abuse. Of course the catholic church hangs on to celibacy as it wants to ensure that its wealth and property is kept in the hands of the organization and does not go to the children of married organizers with children. Celibacy was not always the rule to the catholic church it was brought in to protect the organizations wealth.

There is the institution and there are the people who make up the institution. Joyce said that a man without a woman is an incomplete man. The people who run this organization are incomplete men. On top of that they have power. On top of that their crimes are covered up. So we have the epidemic of child abuse. This organization is joined at the hip with capitalism. It is a candidate to be dismantled.

Sean.

Dutch priests abused 'up to 20,000 children'

Archbishop of Utrecht Wim Eijk during a press conference in Zeist, the Netherlands, yesterday. He said an independent report that thousands of children suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions - and that church officials knew but failed to act - "fills us with shame and sorrow".Photograph: AP

THE NETHERLANDS was in shock last night after a long-awaited 1,100-page report confirmed that more than 800 Catholic priests and monks abused as many as 20,000 children in their care between 1945 and 1985.PETER CLUSKEY in The Hague

The report of the Deetman Commission, chaired by former education minister Wim Deetman, also concluded that knowledge of the abuse was widespread, and it accused religious orders, dioceses and even congregations of failing to help the victims or take action against the abusers.

It said the abuse, which included sexual abuse, took place in boarding schools, children’s homes and orphanages across the country, but was never openly acknowledged by church authorities because of their “culture of silence” and determination “not to hang out their dirty washing”.

Mr Deetman, a former chairman of the Christian Democratic Party who began his investigation in March 2010 when the allegations surfaced, said the commission estimated the number of children abused at between 10,000 and 20,000.

More than 800 of the abusers have been named. Of those, 105 are still alive – though Mr Deetman could not say how many still worked for the church.

He said that some 2,000 victims had so far come forward to make official complaints – and of that number, 1,800 of the cases had involved sexual abuse that in many cases could be characterized as “very serious”.

“To prevent a scandal, nothing was done,” said Mr Deetman. “The abuse was not acknowledged, and there was no help, compensation or aftercare for the victims. The claim by church officials that they did not know what was going on simply does not hold water.”

On the controversial issue of celibacy, the report said that while this was not a critical element in the abuse, it was an additional risk factor that made priests “more vulnerable to transgressive behaviour”. Mr Deetman told a news conference in The Hague: “We do not consider it impossible that a number of these cases might not have happened if celibacy had been voluntary.”

In a brief statement last night, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Netherlands said the church had been “shocked and shamed” by the report.

It also reiterated an offer, first made by the Dutch church last month, to pay compensation totalling about €5 million to victims. This would range from about €5,000 for inappropriate remarks or behaviour, up to €100,000 for the most serious cases of sexual abuse.

However, that compensation offer was described at the time as inadequate by groups representing victims – and they accused the church of a cynical attempt to pre-empt yesterday’s report.

Last night the victims’ organisation Klokk said the findings had been even more shocking than they had expected.

The organisation criticised, in particular, “the passive attitude” of the Catholic Church in its response both to the original allegations and to the subsequent findings – and said that attitude gave grounds for little hope that anything in the church would change. A separate commission, led by a senior department of justice official, Rieke Samson-Geerlings, is investigating the role of the Dutch social services in placing children in institutions – and in some cases in foster homes – where they were open to abuse.